So This is the New Year

And as we waited to get rid of this failure and nonsense, they played songs sixty seconds at a time. No one got comfortable, no on danced. We entered the year with question marks and quarrels, ultra lights and light beers. And as young men shouted to us walking as the women took the car, we thought about how strange it was that everything should feel the same.

Me, Bird

When I make this face I turn into a bird. I did it once at 7 AM and it stuck forever. My arms become wings and my feet become bird feet. I fly away with the sun. I never melt, I never go home. I turn. Ack into myself when I make this face, and then the night goes on. Again I might be a bird, I might be something else. I don't know when I'll be me.

Big City Shut it Down

This is a big city, you'll never find her.

What do you know?

I know this is a big city, and you're inching your way toward stalker.

Shut it.

Made for TV movie.

Stop.

Time not served.

That's not even a thing.

You'll make it a thing. They'll write books about you. Songs about you.

Shut it.

TV movies, Jack, TV movies. Name your washed-up actor. Hope you've had good haircuts.

They never show the whole story.

People don't want whole stories. They want interesting stories. They want blood. What do you want?

I don't know.

Yes, you do.

Shut it.

Shut it.

Shut it.

Down.

Yes.

Broke

I dropped the bottle and it broke and I was disappointed. Whenever a bottle or glass breaks I want it to be because I smashed it on the ground or chucked it at the wall, not because it slipped through my fingers. But I never smash a bottle and I never chuck a glass, and so I am always disappointed.

I unspooled paper towels onto my hand and finished off the roll. Transferring the wad to underneath my foot, I glided out in circles over my kitchen floor. Give me my Olympic gold.

I want my anger to mean something. I want it to sink in. If I'm going to a dark place let me do it my way, let me bring a little light, a little pain, and a little broken glass.

When We Stopped Being Happy

When we stopped being happy things were great. The weight was lifted off our shoulders, not to mention the other parts of our bodies. We didn't have to worry about pleasing each other or anybody else, but if we did that was fine. Bedtimes and rise-and-shines shifted as they did. We weren't angry at things anymore. We ate when we were hungry, and we drank to wash things down. We didn't force the happiness, and it didn't always come. But when it did it was good and true and right. A little goes a long way.

Summer

Summer is my full moon. After the thaw, as the days get longer and the skirts get shorter, I transform into a seething, drooling, hairy fool.

Hypnotized by the swinging pendulum of a ponytail, its rhythm chanting back in my direction, nope, nope, nope, nope, nope...

I should have stayed behind.

A Mask for Winter

It rained that day. The snow melted and padded the land for the rain. Slush and grime. And then cold, a damned sudden drop. Thick and cold and frozen. And then snow, a layer light and beautiful, a winter mask.

They couldn't see, they didn't know. They felt as though this day had come before. And indeed it had, and it would again. Were they prepared? No. What did they learn? Nothing. The glass and metal twisted and broke, the clothes were black. Tears froze midstream down each cheek. Flowers, and flowers, and flowers. The same thing.

No More Christmas

No more cookies, no more socks, no more bows on every box. No more paper trails and chunks, no more morning Christmas funks. No more chimney, no more sweep, no more sleepy souls to keep. No more merry, no more light. No more "It will be all right" to tell my children as they go. And no more anything but no.

Miss Direction

He asked for another and I said nothing, just poured. He said to join him, I did. He asked me what my name was, I told him what I always say. He stuck around and stuck around and I cleaned twice as slow. He fell down and I picked him back up, we'd do it all again. His laugh was thick, it had to be. He asked me to point him home, I sent him on his way, never knowing where, but he keeps coming back.

Blood and Snow

They waited for the snow to come, but it was only rain. It was warm and then it turned, it froze and the world was slick. They skidded and swerved and were bested by embankments. Innocents died, tears were cried, obituaries flowed like blood. And the blood was as thick as snow.

7/10

A poor showing, poor showing, a very poor showing indeed. Only seven out of ten films guessed based on one letter of font alone. Should have been at least a nine and I was expecting ten. What good is a mind if it cannot capture these things? I remember what you ate fifteen years ago, I remember some brother's car. I remember the look on the woman's face who made my pasta back at school, and the olive oil and garlic she'd add in copious amounts. But I guess letters escape me, or escape me all but average. I should be happy with seven out of ten. If you could go through life doing seven out of ten things rights they'd hail you a god. You'd find yourself with T-shirts, hats, and frisbees, golden idols, sacrifices. Average, when you think on it, is really quite incredibly remarkable.

Driverby

He looked at me like I was crazy. Probably thought he was the only one who did that. Oh no, gentle driverby, we all scream out into the void. We are all lost. Honing our howls for the hounds of hell.

O! darkness!

O! tragedy!

O! life!

Ointments

You have tall socks and you're playing games on my device and your fingers are smudgy with butter. Head to toe in lotions and oils and balms and salves. It's the winter, everyone's dry, drier still for all your ointment confiscation.

Get them safely across the pond. Figure out the pattern. Start all over when too many have died. The crisscrossed paths shining forth from the overhead light jump out like some modern painting I hate. Maybe now I know why. I'm just cross myself. It's dry, I itch, and I always scratch too much.

Chosen People

I woke up at seven because God hates me. That's not true, we're the chosen people. Or, at least, we were.

I gave you one hour and then I couldn't help it. I was restless and my restlessness needs someplace to go. You were mad, it was clear, even mad at me in your sleep. I'd put my arm around you and you'd throw it off. Subconscious tells all.

You asked me how I slept, how I felt, if I was feeling better. You got me a glass of water, just got it felt the dryness in the room and acted accordingly. And when I said you were mad at me in your sleep you said, What the hell do I know?

When a Shadow Moves

When the balloon becomes a man and you put it in the hall. When settling becomes chewing and you're suddenly surrounded. When a shadow moves when it should not. Find me under the covers, find me alone, waiting for daylight and hoping it all goes away. Problems, no matter how small, if ignored, disappear. Or something very near it.

I Waited Up for You

One o'clock, two o'clock, three o'clock came, but you never did. I sank deeper into the sofa groove and thought so much my brain hurt. When the line was finally crossed, from today on to tomorrow, I knew I had lost you. And, still, with the oncoming call of birds and workers, there was something that gave me hope. Maybe it was the sun, shining through the window, sending me to sleep, where I could dream about better things.

All the Nuts Are Gone

One two three four as I sit here it's just sugar all the nuts are gone one two three four crunchy crack against my teeth and upper gums and stay there for a night or two and one two three four her hand in my pocket reaching for something no pocket can hold one two three four and it's so cold but things are sweet even if it's just a sweetness.

Suggestions

Killing people, or the man who killed himself on that show. Remember the astronaut scene I did? It takes place at a sideboard and there's bread and cheese and it's such a luxury to get to snack like that. You don't know Gail, but if you did you'd understand this story. And I was like, aw, what a nice image. Or the holiday train.

The 4:15

I'd stick a penny on the tracks and wait for the 4:15. It never came. I wanted it flattened, wanted to hear the billowing smoke of progress. The great iron horse, taking my money and making it souvenir. Memories of cactus and wild Indian, none of them real. I'd put my head to the ground and only get dirty. From far away I'd want to hear those trudging footsteps, the gears and hooves, the timeless elegance of tasteful violence. But I'd put the penny in my pocket again, and try another day.

Hood

How did I ever make it? How did I ever make it without a hood?

Such fake fur and other fake fur. Nestling my baby head like a baby's head. I am back in the cocoon of a coat, which is like a jacket, only bigger and thicker, too.

A hood keeps the cold out, keeps the wind at bay, keeps the bay in view. And, view, yes, only what I want is in it. What is right in front of me, where I turn my torso. O! to be struck down stylishly by some modern midsize SUV of the day! What a way to go.

It forces me to talk louder. It also means I can't hear you. I'd say that's a win-win.

I have never been so warm and fashionable at the same time! I can die happy, and loved, and like everybody else.

Tricky Arrow

Someone has flown beneath the tricky arrow. Someone has tried their venomous argument. Someone hides in the gigantic shadow of those who came before. Someone is happy to stay there.

Someone has a poorly pricked authority. Someone is brave against the ugliest expectation. Someone declares, repeatedly, that nobody dies without stolen coverage. Someone questions, someone counters, someone dies.

Surpassed

You've surpassed me, old stranger. You've found your own way. You've cried bad tears I tried to hold you from, you said to let you so I did. Kidnapping and apprehension, things taken for granted. I've left you and I am not coming back. That is what I say when someone gets ahead.

Rainy Claim

I absorb a rotted blue storm, the bright battle of a rainy claim. One identity slams into another, a crazy participation where no one gets out dry. We are a nasty concoction, nestled in the environment like so many leaves being grabbed at by false hands.

Granola

After I finish my cereal I finish my coffee, and after that I finish my phone call and I hang up. She was saying something about simplifying or condensing or consolidating, and to tell you the truth I couldn't make out a lot of it for all the granola clusters. I got the general gist and said some pleasantries and got off. I was going to see her soon anyway.

In the office all eyes turned, murmurs had murmurs. I got called into her office before I could get another cup of coffee. She asked me what I was doing there. I said working. She asked if she hadn't made herself clear on the phone. I said of course, consolidation was in order... It had never occurred to me that granola covered up my doom. I packed my things and left.

Out of Place

I go in and look around and it's these groups of kids, siting and talking and being young. And I'm not old but out of place and I feel eyes on me though no one's looking. I sit next to some asshole eating biscuits, another stifling laughter from his book. There is a reason they call it a cattle call and it extends beyond sheer numbers.

Looking at my numbers, my sides, I remember less and less what brought me there. Fear? Fame? Fortune? I hear runs in the hallway, people moving their fingers to an invisible beat, belting beyond the door. Everyone who goes in gets asked for something else. Will I break the chain?

I go outside and there's a pack, smoking. I have nothing to do, I'll be damned if I'm leaving. One of them asks if I want one, and damned if I don't take one off the son of a bitch and smoke it good and deep. These nerves are mine.

Something Too Human

Molly and her goddamn daschund walk into my flat. That little thing scuffs up my hardwood every time and she knows it but she pretends. "He's so small," she says. I start planning air fresheners.

She's come for her bike and I don't know how she'll get it back. The dog—whatever his name is, something too human—has those teeny tiny little legs and I feel like any gear would kill him. "I was hoping you would walk it back with us." She could've told me that on the phone.

I don't like bikes and I don't like outside and I don't like her and I don't like how slow we're walking to her place. This pup has absolute power over her and everyone it passes. Short hair, short legs, short temper, one out of three ain't bad.

"Want to come in for a bit?" she asks, and I say no. I have to be getting back. She asks for what, for who, for why. And I say I have to be getting back. And I look inside and her floors are scuffed up something awful.

Morning Person

Ha ha, of course! Why wouldn't I love getting cold air on my face and cigarette smoke in my eyes while you talk incessantly about television shows at six in the morning? What do you think I am, volatile?

But what I'd really like to do is have you ask me—repeatedly, if at all possible—if I'm okay. And for you to ignore whatever answer I give you and keep treating me as though I should be acting the same way as you. Boy, what a swell wake-up call!

Ooh, ooh! On second thought, could you please put your artificial banana oatmeal directly under my nose instead of a full foot away from it? That would be ideal.

Actually, just drop me off at this corner here. Or just slow down and I'll open the car and roll out and hopefully die. Thanks!

Jungle of the Heart

Somewhere deep in the jungle of the heart lies a house inside a man, empty and alone. It is filled with papers and filings, boxes and cabinets with little black check marks and tiny red dots. It is brimming with aloofness and severity, a ticking time bomb waiting for the perfect spark. A man caving in on himself, bringing the house down brick by brick. A landscape changing to a wasteland, a heart to an open wound. And the foul stench of narrow possibilities rising like a withered phoenix, called on its way back to some distant hell. Somewhere, deep, in the jungle of the heart.

Greatest Fears

- spiders

- swallowing a spider

- inaction/apathy/general sloth-like behavior

- Google-searching something grisly and then going to prison for that grisly thing through a set of horrific coincidences

- getting out the peanut butter only to discover the jar is basically empty

- dying (most forms)

- falling down while carrying a huge tray of important food for high-place people (may or may not include stairs)

- handing over a broken and battered world to my children, so irreparably damaged that the only words I will be able to say are with my eyes, something to the tune of, "I know. I tried. I'm sorry."

- spider webs

There, Outside

I come home with groceries. My hands are full. Darren, there, outside, watering the azaleas. He looks at me and smiles. What's for dinner? You'll have to wait and see. He laughs. Waiting, seeing, you might say that sums us up.

I go inside. Kitchen light is on. A note on the cutting board counter: I love you. I peel it off and take it out. What's this for? It's for you. Why not tell me outside? I didn't want to forget.

I get dinner ready. Stuffed pork chops, green salad, crusty bread to sop up all the good stuff. He comes in later, after the gardening and the bathroom and the crossword. What's the occasion? I love you. Is that all? I didn't want to forget.

After dinner we read, we sip tea, the college game is on mute. In the background, the soft and soapy working of the dishwasher. It gets dark outside. Kitchen light is on.

Stuck

Imagine, if you will, being stuck in time. A shadowy figure floating in a sea of shadowy figures. Everything moving and standing still at once, everything lost between question and answer. Is it possible to be lost in a place like that? If everyone is equal is there anyone at all? A broken clock is wrong an infinite number of times a day, that's what they don't tell you.

Dinner

It didn't feel like half a bottle but what do I know about wine? Needs more salt, she said, so I got it for her. I got a look when I set down a big boue container and not an elegant shaker. It shakes all the same doesn't it? I shake. She's right, it's better with more salt. But that's what she's for. I don't make dinner, I make mistakes.

Day's Worth

She flags the bus. Chai tea and a big scarf, baseball cap, a day for errands. She rests on a seat, a crumpled daily rag, reads of crosswords and obscene amounts of money. People giving advice, trying too hard to be funny and failing.

She'll take the bus to the store, the other store, to get groceries and more hangers. An unwashed yesterday resting underneath her cap. She'll get asked for money and she'll tell the truth. She has somewhere to be.

Home, later, wine and a bath. Was that an entire day that went by? Was that a day's worth? Careful not to get too pruney she gets out in an hour. Curls up with a book and glass and enjoys getting clean at the end.

Lifeblood

I walk down the stairs. It feels like the hall between the lockers and the pool. I say get me a drink and I go to the bathroom. On the dirty floor there is a small pool of blood and I slip on it. Even though it's never happened I don't think anything of it.

A man in a fleece vest stares at me. There are a lot of men here in fleece vests. He has short hair, they have short hair, they have plaid shirts and undershirts and 401ks. Light beers are their lifeblood.

I'm at my table, there's a bowl of popcorn. "I need a donut and two Gatorades" another girl says. It's 10:30.

The night is like any other. He gets a cab home, gets out with me, says something about walking me to the door and walking home when I question him. I don't know where he lives. I never will.

Strange Feelings

Can I brush my teeth, she asks, and I say, of course, everything's where it usually is. I hand her a towel to wash her face and she smiles because she doesn't have to ask. I hear the faucet and get a glass of water.

She climbs in, feet cold, she rests them on me and I shiver. She laughs. Everyone will be warm in bed soon enough. I rest one arm under my head, another over her. I know I'll wake in pain, various numb muscles and strange feelings. This feeling, though, it's the strangest yet.

Benevolent Dictate Her

You wanted to wear those sweatpants last night, but I said no. So tonight, in my benevolence, I grant you permission to wear them. Congratulations, you are so sweet! Now, may I please stay the night?

Least

I waited behind the curtain, a knock on the pane and still as death. She would scream, I knew, she would be so frightened. But I would be there to hug, and to laugh, and to say it was all okay. It's the least I could do.

Grace

It's all fine up until the actual eating. I sit down before the spread, the hours of planning and preparation, the chopping and the coupon cutting. I pour the water, I pour the wine. I say grace because that's what I was raised to do.

But we're not thankful for the blessings we've received. I am thankful for the blessing I've received. And it's a small bit sad distinction I didn't see until then. And the meal looks good, but not great, and the table looks so small. I wipe my tears with my paper napkin, and I leave the water and drink the wine.

Fragment

So I wake back up, attached to my desk with drool, and continue cooking. The steps from the office to the kitchen are few and terrible, and every light in the house is on. Usually this artificial keeps me up, but a bottle of wine can turn your many tables.

There are carrots and onions and celeries, fragments of wholes, chopped decently and with care. Bread lays out, drying. Salt and pepper, broth and an empty bottle. It almost looks as though I know what I'm doing. If you can read, you can cook, my grandmother told me. So maybe my culinary literacy is somewhere around the fourth grade.

I take up the knife, bad idea and I've got plenty. Things are still out of focus, I'm still packing this drool. The handle is slippery, a slight coating of butter, and what's to keep it from going across my wrist? What's to keep this sink from being my dying pool? Why did it take me so long to see the dark side of a holiday?

Things can't really wait 'til morning but I let them. Hunger will have to wait, like it usually does. I go back to my drooled desk and bring one more light into my eyes. I don't use this time for sleep. I'll spool slowly out activities that should take seconds, fill my hours with them, wait and regret and pick up the knife. But I'll eat, eventually. I always do.

French

He asked me to remember him, but to forget him if it was too much trouble. That alone's enough to stick someone in my mind. So there he sat, taking up not too much space, replaying over and over how it was just fine to forget him. It wasn't a task. It was all too easy.

Nite

French fries and champagne, pool cues and caviar. We got high and we got low before the crowd dispersed. Dancing and drugs and back room antics, we get together and we feel young. Morning comes and painfully we remember. Years don't just go by, they get added on. Thrown on top of your shoulders, one by one, until you're carrying your entire life with you wherever you go.

Prayer for Sleep

A sudden light hits me, she's putting on lotion and waking me up. Talks about her new makeup irritating her, and she knows a little about irritation. I was supposed to be awake anyway, grunting through the story of her day. She smells like flowers now, whatever lotion smells like, like a woman. I'm just glad I don't have to smell me, and I feel a little bad that she does. I could take better care of myself.

I ask her something and she holds up a finger. I wait. She was praying, sending good and beautiful thoughts out into the world. For peace, for love. I haven't prayed since I was a kid and it was never for any kind of world peace. I know too much now to do anything like that. But she falls right to sleep, and me, I'm awake.

Marking

Mandy marked it for the rest of us, went through the motions so we knew what was what. You could tell her heart wasn't really in it, and that's just fine, it doesn't matter when you're marking. So we watched and got a pretty good idea, and then we tried it ourselves. We didn't do it that good, I guess I wasn't so surprised. We only had one example to go on, wasn't even anything all that real. We had to make up most of it, the bones were there, the skin and flesh and sinew, that was us. People looked at us and laughed, but we, we weren't that skilled enough to laugh out at ourselves.

Cavorters

Started at the bottom now we're here, still at the bottom, looking up people dancing around and singing and eating and drinking and cavorting, the cavorters. No one brought us up, no one helped and no one asked. We thought that if we worked together that would be enough, hard work and sweat and elbow grease and determination. But you can work and work and never get a word in edgewise, speak your mind and never get ahead. And up there, over there beyond the darkness, you can see that it exists. But you're here, you were, and are, and will be.

Bitch About It

"You're kinda awesome, you know that right?"

"I do!" I said. "Thank you!"

"Oh..." He didn't like that.

"What?"

"I mean, you don't have to be a bitch about it."

Women are so beautiful until they agree with you.

Skin of Teeth

We'd get Belgian frites and extra dipping sauces, paper cones bleeding through with oil. A late night addition to a fine establishment, plenty of characters and drunken fools, plenty of fingers to be licked.  A good spot to soak up a good night's badness.

We'd get the potatoes and walk around forgetting who we were, cold nights and hot opinions. Laughing, laughing, chomping lightly, watching breath escape from us. Money well spent for once, though at that hour and under those conditions there was little that seemed like unimportant purchases.

We'd always said we'd be this way. Make enough to just get by, skin of teeth and the like. Sleeping on mattresses and dirty laundry, late notices and late mornings. Crisp and hot and creamy inside, a snack on the way back to our abode, humble as ever. Yes, we were artists and kings and queens and all of those things. Most of all though, we were hungry.

Iron

The iron sits at the top of my closet, waiting to flatten my toe. I can see it there, dripping and still hot, cord dangling from its loose placement on the handle. In the grabbing of a sweater or a pair of pants I will knock it just enough to send it tumbling down. My reflexes, good though once they were, will not be enough to save my skin and nail. I will be crushed and burned beneath the iron, as warm and creased as a Sunday shirt.

Chance Encounter

Chance is many things, but above all he is the kind of man who wears sunglasses on the back of his neck and that's all you really have to know about him. The glasses come with the emblem of a fine Italian sports automobile. Desire invites you to look at the sun until you bleed. Prego!

His faded rose-colored shorts and his boat shoes and his boats, Chance is a guy who's had the same haircut since middle school. He remembers the first time he ever pushed a kid into a locker and called him faggot like it was yesterday. Chance yearns for simpler times and if he stays simple he just might get them.

Are you going to call the Uber? Because Chance called the Uber last time and he always fucking calls the Uber. If he's going to call it again you're gonna get shots, and he gets first dibs at the bar. Yeah, that's what he fucking thought.

Chance doesn't get what the big deal is with the Redskins' name anyway.

He likes to chill and work out, take off his shirt and take some selfies with his shirt off. He works hard! He drinks beers! He calls you a fucking pussy! But it's all in good fun until somebody sticks their hand down their pants and adjusts their crotch right in front of your face while you're sitting on the couch. Can you not see someone sitting here, Chance?

Chance cheats on his girlfriend but is trying to stop, he's been really good about it lately. He would never dream of letting her go. She's super hot and does yoga which means she wears a lot of yoga pants and I mean come on. Plus she puts out a lot even when she's really tired because he loves her that much.

He also loves backwards caps.

If you see a car that looks nicer than your dad's, it's probably Chance's. If you hear music you used to hate in high school, it's probably Chance's. If you die a little inside every time someone holds up a fish or a dead animal or shoots a beer bottle, those dead feelings fly through the air and land on Chance's soft dumb dick. Your hatred only makes him stronger. Your insults only curl his grin. Your logic and your reason and your rights only get blown to smithereens in a body-sprayed minefield of water bottles filled with chaw spit.

Jeremiah

It was a nightmare, whatever it was, and I woke up to screeching. "What was that?" she said, I said go back to sleep.

A frantic scrambling somewhere outside my door. Glue traps are vile, evil things, but sometimes you just don't care. The rat would move, and pause, and try to move again. If I could only get back in that hole, I'm sure he was thinking, I'd never come back here again. At least he wasn't shrieking.

Shuffle shuffle shuffle. Silence. Shuffle shuffle for dear life. I've seen those things, they're sticky buggers, they don't let go, you're there for good. How desperate would you have to be to gnaw off your own limb?

One last effort and then it gave up or died or chewed its way to freedom. Back in the bedroom she was scared and I said what for. "Do you think Jeremiah will be okay?" Get a glue trap, get a name. I'd call that an even trade for vermin.

Dirt

As I stand here looking down, I remember when I dropped that first fist of dirt. I thought it would make a louder sound, I thought I would at least hear it in my soul. But it only sounded like light and simple earth. It really is dust to dust, and every weight is one you add yourself.

Almost There

Waiting at the bar, bar of blazers, bar of bros, bar of bothers and light fingers pushing on my lower back. Excuse me, excuse me, move move move. Don't you see I'm moving in my own small way? Don't you know I'd never move for you?

I dodge a pool cue. Sorry, he's sorry, I guess I'm sorry, too. What am I doing here? Seems I wait a lot in places like this, wait for people who never show and sometimes don't even when they do. I feel my voice leaving before I speak, I feel the sweat of sitting. And somehow, dammit, I am always with a bag.

Are you coming, are you coming, I am almost there. And how much time, I wonder, how much time have I spent in places such as this while everyone is somewhere else.

The Truth

"What should I say?" I asked. "What do I tell him?"

"Tell him..." But she was at a loss, too. "Tell him that everything will be all right."

I walked over and tucked my son into bed. He looked up, the end of tears. And after a moment I said, "Good night." Kissed his forehead. Turned off the light.

I turned to her and she understood. I don't know if it will be all right, but there will be a tomorrow. I cannot bear to tell him anything other than truth. Not now.

Plunge

It isn't the deep breath before the plunge, but the deep breath after. When you finally decide you can stand it. But whether your head's above water or you're still far beneath it, that's for you to decide. Breathing only goes so far, if you don't fight to stay alive.

Hate

If anything, hate is just as powerful as love. It's quite possibly more powerful. But it will always be second to fear. Fear, the child of ignorance; ignorance, the lover of apathy; apathy, the easiest thing since sliced bread. It feels good, it tastes good. Until you chip a tooth, and your skeleton crumbles like dominos.

King of the Mountain

Dragged to the top of a mountain of dung, flies swarming, comical cartoon stink lines pulsating like mutated sunbeams. The horrid thock thock of bare white socks in slop, the buzzing of the insects, the white noise of a lie, the cacophony of failure. Covered in muck and mired in misery, but damn does it feel good to be the king.

Oil Lamp

I have an oil lamp that sits atop my bookshelf. It was my mother's, her mother's before her, I think. I found it in a closet next to wicker baskets and old jackets and decided I'd take it. Mother said to get a special kind of oil so I could burn it in the house. I asked the hardware man and he said, You really planning on using that thing?

When it gets dark and I'm here on my own, I light the oil lamp on my bookshelf. The oil slicks my fingers and the smoke has stained my walls. This was how people got light inside, light the wick and twist the knob and let it grow, let it fill the room. It smells like work and history, and I'm only slightly worried my house will burn down.

Do I use it? I light it. That's use, I think, to me. Does it light my way? Up the stairs or late at night? Not really. But it sits there and adds a story, adds to mine, and I bet in fifty years it could still be working, sitting on shelves and lighting up rooms.

Heal

They told me to remember and I always did. They told me never forget, I worked hard not to, I took vitamins. They told me to forgive. I said that's where I draw the line. They said it was the most important part, for all involved, we all would feel much better. I don't care about feeling better, I said. Time heals. I do not.

Behavior

When there was enough for me I didn't take it. I didn't say a word, didn't speak up, made no moves and made no ripples. I was a good boy, I was well-behaved. I was, as Mother often said, as good as I was handsome. And even though she was my mother she was honest, sometimes far too much.

There was enough for me and I didn't take it. I could have had my fill, we all could have. But I was nice, and good, and looked too much in the mirror. And when everything was gone I said, "But what about me?"

History Is

History is a broken bottles, thousands of them, confiscation and hidden champagne. Smoke after smoke after marijuana smoke. History is high fives, the ones with strangers, the ones that hurt. People on rooftops and perched on slow cars. History is traffic but nobody cares, horns blaring, music blaring, everything is set to blaring. A rambunctious choir of joyful drunks. History is a team, one that everybody's on, people you'll never meet and meet once and never meet again. Smiles and salutes and cheers and songs. History is years of waiting, years of crying, years of living with your heart in your throat and a rock in your gut. And then the moment comes when everything goes away, you open up, everything is let go and everything comes back. History is a relief.

Sweatshirt

She stood in an oversized sweatshirt, hanging slightly off her shoulders, sucking lightly on her finger, hair strands curled on her face. It was a wonder, to him, that anyone would ever want to wear his sweatshirt. He had seen women do it in the movies, he bought sweats in pure hope. It doesn't come in a tuxedo or a sports car, it isn't adorned with makeup or perfume, it isn't the money spent or the countries traveled. Because while those all may help a bit, nothing holds the power of a sweatshirt.

Transition

Orange turned to red, cobwebs to snow, black cats and witches to Santas and Christ Childs. Never had I seen such a difference in days, a transition into midnight. I wanted to be scared, I was still in that spooky mood, I wasn't ready to let go of the terror. And yet all around me: cheer, wonder, hope, joy. It's only so long you can sneer at a world like that before you think, What have I got to be so gloomy about?

Being Horrible

I don't get anything from being horrible. I get my solitude. I get my cup of black coffee. No one to make my bed for, no one to cook or clean. Over the years the windows get dirtier and dirtier, a false fading sun, setting down slowly on me. It's dark, I'm angry, and the voices outside won't stop.

Procrastinator

I took my time and look what it got me. A stack of papers and a line of creditors lurking round my door. I got so many orders barked at me you'd think I'd be in better shape, know how to take that rifle apart piece by piece in seconds. But instead I walk to the corner store, trying my luck on another weekday night, wondering about Wonderbread. Every dime and nickel that goes toward my salvation is another nickel and dime. Preemption, that's the golden ticket, and all my dough's in poker change.

Brute

And what I'd really like to do is answer the phone, tell him he's not wanted, tell him to go to hell and to fuck off while doing it. That if he really cared he would, I don't know, show it. And I'd like to reach through and break his face and strangle him with the cord, if there is one, and if there isn't I'd find something else. Because sometimes brutes only respond to brutish things, so if that's what it takes then that's what it takes. I'd look good in an orange jumpsuit.

But I don't do these things, and I don't say these words. I pass versions of them onto you, I claim I'm no psychiatrist. You know what's best for you and I can only choose support, it ain't my life and it ain't my love. But what I know of it is, well, I know enough. That a man can say a lot of empty letters in a lot of pleasing ways, and it's a whole lotta nothing until he starts acting them out.

My Noise

It's late. I pretend it's early, say that it's on time. I wonder if anybody notices, if anyone cares. If I call it what it should be instead of what it is, isn't that enough? If a tree falls, that sort of thing. I don't know if anyone is around to hear my noise. I chop trees how I want.

Hurts So Good

She ran her fingers over the small of my back and I contorted, twisted up in too much pleasure. Did that hurt, she asked, and, yes, I said, but only because it felt so good. And so from then on she avoided that spot, even when I asked her not to. But still she stayed away, even though, sometimes, the pleasure that comes from pain and the pain that comes from pleasure can be the best of what they are.

Into the Fog

Maybe not today or tomorrow and maybe not even soon. Maybe not even someday, maybe it won't ever happen, maybe all that happens is you watch the plane fly away. You walk into the fog, away from the corpse, straight into yourself and it's all you can do. Knowing one man is impossible enough, you can't expect to know many. So maybe regret never happens, maybe you're too busy fighting the good fight. Maybe the pang is always deep inside, maybe nothing ever really goes away. And one day you wake up, still in fog, rotten flesh in your nostrils, and you ask yourself how you got there. And it's all because you made her fly away.

I, Unclean

"Someone stop this madness!" I shouted on the steps of my front porch, well past the hours of dressing, in my old bathrobe and slippers while the autumn breeze turned to foul wind and set my skin on ice. No one stopped at me, no one looked, no trees bent, no one came to my aid in any way. It was cold and I, unclean, I walked back in disheveled, disappointed, that madness should continue to reign with nothing done by nobody to stop it.

Source of Warmth

Capping off a cold day here downtown, every street a wind tunnel, every coffee shop window a welcome oasis. I'm heading over home for a quick stop-off before meeting Sal for our weekly shoot-the-shit.

It's a quiet one, too, today, I don't see many people, don't hear many things. I blink just a little longer than usual, sends my body chills when those lids meet up and my eyes turns to ice. But nothing a little barley, water, rye, and wheat can't handle.

Age me in a bourbon barrel, just to see what happens. I'd like to see that, taste the difference, wonder what the cherrywood what-have-you seeps into my skin. Will I darken, sweeten, will I be bold and bitter, even more than now I am already. Will I have nose and legs and anything else that makes me human. Will I go down smooth. Will you want me at all.

A chill! I've been gabbing too long, I never gab short. Sal will wonder where I am. He'll be there on his stool, checking his watch, thinking to himself, thinking about whatever he thinks about when he's alone. I wonder if he thinks about what I think about when I'm alone, if it's him or work or weather or what. Although I guess the point of being friends is we don't have to think about each other.

No one's out today. Everybody's home. Everybody's got the same idea. Everybody's looking for a little source of warmth, a good swaddling, growing in so tomorrow they can reach out grabbing, doubled might and clear vision. Cold gets to people, and it gets them freezing, but in the end it gets them warm, you stick it out and know what to do.

Is This Okay

I said is this okay and she said yes but I couldn't tell. Situation like that words don't always mean what they mean. I said are you sure and she said yes but then she says wait. Is this okay. She says is this okay and I say I think so and her eyes go wide so I say yes. And I say yes, not so. I think it is and thinking's all you can do, situation like this.

Stop checking in, she says, stop asking questions stop asking. She pushes me away and says why are you so nice. I'm not and that's the thing and I tell her. And it's quiet. And I want to ask what she means but questions are chinks in the chain and I'm weak enough already on my side all by my own. I give a rough look, dark and dreamy like I've seen on magazines and I stop with questions and I stop with hesitation and I decide that this is okay. I become what I think I have to be. And it turns out that for right now I'm right.

A Champion

When you win you forget when you lost. When you lose you'll never win. You'll only lose forever and ever. It doesn't matter how well you do or how good you are, it will never be enough. You will have to win so much more than you lose, you will have to be a champion. A champion for all time, for the ages, for little boys and girls in school. You will never be one for yourself, important though it is. You'll will never be enough, even though you are.

Placeholder

I wait for inspiration and refuse to put on heat. Remember my tea, it's cooled off too much but it'll have to do. It's hard sometimes, soothing myself into an early state of sleep. The body kicks in and confuses, not Christmas Eve, but an anticipation for something that isn't even there.

I stare at my clothes and know I need a purge. I need to clean out everything: my closet, my desk, my mind. Papers and old shirts, dramatic ideas and half-songs sung with words I can't let go. If you repeat the placeholder enough it sets itself in stone.

I wait for the call I know is coming. Answers I'll have to provide, later rather than sooner and that was my mistake. I am figuring out a lot of things I should have figured out a long time ago. I only hope that never changes, and most of me thinks that it never does.

I stare at John, Paul, George, and Ringo. A perfect storm, a cosmic aligning. I shake my internal fist at my aligned cosmos, I wish to damn hell they had ru it by me first. I am trying to follow the signs. I am worried that I will split myself in opposite directions and each path leads to my undoing.

I wait for it, the tea to kick in, I rub my feet together. Slowly warmth is coming, slowly my knees keep aching, slowly I'm forgetting. People come in and out in an instant. I am holding open doors and windows, trying to let the light in, only trying to say hello.

Atrophy

Stranded in bed, the inevitability of brunch before us. Where shall we go, she says. Savory and sweet and extra coffee, a paralyzingly choice of insides and toppings. I say I'm not hungry but my stomach betrays me. She smiles at the rumbling. I'll say that, she smiles when I rumble.

My knees hurt, more than usual. Is this what happens when you're sedentary? Am I already beginning to atrophy? I am in danger of not using the best parts of myself, the ones you'll never see. A meal is not so long.

We eat and I pay. She grabs some mints and stuffs them in my pocket. The sun hits her hair through the window just right. Black never looked so bright.

A Name I Never Shared

She'd make tea and we'd fall asleep to jazz and dream about being better. I had a name for her I never shared and I hoped she had the same, a name for me, something she called me when it was only her around. There wasn't a bet I lost or an argument I ventured where I wasn't happy she was there. Still, you can always be better.

Nights were long, she went away just like the song and I started talking to myself. It would be okay, it would be fine, things would get back to normal. I was having a hard time grasping normal, any version of it. When things are lost you replace them, sometimes you have to replace them with whatever's around. Over time it might erode into a resemblance, but it's never quite the same.

Communication is the key. I said I would never stop talking when she got back. Listening and sharing and all the things in hindsight. Back we'd go to sun-dipped mornings, our creature comforts, newspaper smudges and the future. She would talk about the future all day and I would listen.

Dreaming ceased. They say you dream every night, you just don't remember. I was forgetting dreams before they started, faces and voices were slipping. My subconscious was telling me something, shaking its head, filling in the gaps with larger gaps. Do you have any idea the sound of nothing filling nothing? It's a word I can't describe. I can feel it, I always will, but I'll never know what it's called.

Burying Bullets

You get nothing from burying bullets. You have to bury the gun. Heap as much dirt as you want over the holes in your heart, it'll fall right through, like a pit to China. Bury one and unearth another. Get dirty, get clean, get forgiven, start forgiving. It is easy and impossible and it is the only way.

Intertwined

When you say friend, say they instead of she, when the answer is last night but you say you don't remember when, you think you are doing something wrong. You can't be everything to everyone so you've settled on being yourself to yourself. Stories get muddled, facts intertwine, this whole thing is quite exhausting. People do it every day, for years, they have whole families. You are not as rotten as you think you are.

Zero to One

There is a distance between zero and one unlike any other I've known. A chasm crossed, far and wide, by nothing other than shear madness. It was true, whatever it was, that drew the two of them together, and truer still what drove them apart. It is the addition of one, and in each one there is infinity.

Thoughts on Lucifer and His Mom

"He has a mom? Do fallen angels have moms? Is his mom God? How could his mom escape hell? Why would she need to? Is Lucifer really so mad at his mom that he wants to keep her in hell while he goes gallivanting on earth with an English accent? She probably just wants to have a little fun like him, check up on him, spend a little time with her beautiful little boy in a place that isn't, you know, hell. Although if that's where they're from then you'd think they might like it. But also Lucifer was cast out of heaven, so that's where he's really from. But when you move you get used to it eventually. Still. Lucifer's got a mom? Does no one else find this weird?"

Discipline

I meant to do work, she told me, I meant to sit down and get things done. But those things lead to other things and one thing leads to another and after a while you lose your way, you know?

I had two choices: tell her the truth or tell her some lie.

I know, I said. It can be hard to concentrate, get things done, discipline yourself. She nodded, she was glad I understood. Discipline yourself, I repeated. She nodded. Again I said, discipline yourself. Discipline, discipline, I said it over and over, to her and at and myself included. And after a while, one thing led to another, and it lost its meaning like all words do.

Diver

I am a diver who almost died diving, diving for depths other divers kept striving toward. Ocean floors hidden and darker and deeper than any death other than that we harken for. We need the blackness, the wild wet unknown; the cheap seats, the galley, the gallery, thrones, they don't interest us. They are just there to distract, confuse us and keep us from getting in tact to the highest goal. Which, irony, is the lowest place, controlling our brains that are brined from our race to the finish. The swimming, the dim fish, the spinning, the holding your breath, the diving, the winning.

Alive One

Lower to me on my side, lower than you on yours. Yours is a one I've seen most often, mine is a thing of beauty though. Mine is rare and unforgivable. You cry like the lightning, curse like a schoolmarm. I'm in one fender bender after another and never is it ever enough. Change, Jack, I'm bringing change about me. I've got cold hard cash meaning to make something of something in the world. Not this world but the world, the next one, whatever we make it. I've been told I'm a real live one, more alive than most. I don't care, I keep it low, I keep it down so's not to arouse suspicion. I like 'em to not see me comin', I'd like to be a real surprise, you know that, Jack? I don't want to be the king. What's even more than that? I'll be him eventually. You scream up a storm, you do, a right nuisance, you take the breaks like they broke you last week. Doesn't even matter I suppose. We all get what's comin' to us anyhow, in the end. Only difference is, Jack, some people make what's comin', and the others, well, they just get what's made.

Replied

It's never the right time to reply. Overthinking has become my pastime, I am an expert, analyzing to the point of paralysis. One day you will say something and I will respond immediately, the truth or not, but it will happen right away. It doesn't matter, I have found, what it is you say, but that you say something. That you build, and work, and move forward. Brick and mortar, brick and mortar, I'm not making the Sistine Chapel here. But maybe if I start talking then we can.

Hiccup

After a day of napping between vomits I have found myself with the hiccups. Perhaps I was overzealous when I could finally keep down water and dry toast, gulping and chewing and sucking in air. As if my abdominals needed more of a workout. I'll have a six-pack come morning. So I hold my breath and drink a glass of water and hold my breath again. Still I stifle these bursts.

And then suddenly they stop. Gone. My breathing and my body return to, well, not normal. But I am unencumbered. My stomach hurts, my knees have bruises from my bathroom floor. I take things in too quickly. And then I pay the price, however small or short.

Savior

You want a savior. You want answers to questions you've had for years. You want a tall drink of water and I've got the hose. I've got books and words to set you right. Put you at ease. All it takes is devotion, all I'd need is your time and life. I've been around the people and I'd call that an even trade.

One Man Clapping

I shake your hand and say good job. You smile, sweaty, hoarse, say thank you. Did I enjoy the show, you ask me. I pretend someone's caught my eye. Did I enjoy the show? I say it was great work, I called you stellar. You seemed to be happy.

I think you saw me during curtain call. Everyone stood, ovating. People are moved too easily these days. And I stayed seated, you looked my way after the bow as the lights went down. Did you see me clapping politely? My convincing smile? My crossed legs?

A pause and I say I have to go. You've got other people to see, admirers, good and decent people. I say good job again. You seem a little less happy. We hug. It is all very polite. We are friends, after all.

Lump

Lump in my throat. Slept with the window open. I don't want to be closed off. Nothing under the sheets but me. Don't want to be closed off but don't want to go out. This is what they call a conundrum.

It's the changing kf seasons. Your body never understands. Twenty degrees disappears and lumps show up. My face dries out. I can never get the equation right. I've been packing on my winter layer since May. There's no time like the past.

Eventually it will warm up. Eventually I'll be too warm. I'll have to go out. Nothing between the world and me. They'll see me and all my lumps, my dryness, they'll know I can never get it right. The future comes and goes. My room stays the same.

Old Oil

Today I watched a strange woman with bad teeth make hamburgers. She made them for hours, for strangers, each one the same as before. She must go home at night and smell like beef grease, wake up smelling like it, go to work and smell like it some more. I wonder how many shirts she's ruined, how many tiny burns she has on her hands from flecks of spattered grease.

I ordered mine, medium rare, it came back well done but there was nothing to say. I ate it and enjoyed it mostly. Everyone in there was. And as we left we probably smelled like meat and old oil, too. But I can shower, I never have to go back again. Although we all have our diners, one way or another.

The Gravity Within Me

Cold and not exactly scared but something of that family. I'm on the bed and remember everything up until the car. I try to move my legs and I can but something inside is weighing me down. There is extra gravity within me. I can only breathe through my mouth.

He's over there in the chair on the phone. The TV's on but muted, still I can't hear him. I make out certain words through my eyelashes: yes, over, delicious. Laughing a little and listening a lot. There's a drink in his hand. My breath smells like grain alcohol.

Ends his call, looks at me, something like a smile. I give him something like a smile back, I try to raise my eyebrows. He walks away. He takes a shower.

I am in pain, something so much more than physical. My body doesn't hurt, my heart and soul are bonded, soaked in dread. In moments I will go to sleep with this man right beside me. He will place his hand on mine and whisper words of love. And he'll fall asleep and wake up rested.

The water off. I move to my side. I look out the window, and all I see is a window. He gets in bed behind me, puts his arm across, his hand on mine. He says those things to me. And I say them back, being tired, and hoping for sleep.

One of Those Parties

There was loud music playing and a lot of people in crazy getups. Everything was pretty much terrible by my account. The worse the music the louder it must play, the louder the clothing the more it must be worn. There is a strange correlation between these things, I've found, and that night was no different.

There was one of those pools and all of those people jumping in it like in the movies. Only no Los Angeles in the background, no city lights to look out onto. Trees and brisk breeze and a neighbor's fence. A small trampoline and kickboards, there were platters of pizza bagels and pizza rolls and half-eaten bags of chips and popcorn and it was a right mess everywhere. Cups of beer and cans of beer and bottles of beer to boot, liquor flowed and flew and so did thoughts and cares and worries.

There was light, too much light, most of the lights were on and it left quite little to the imagination. There was a dog everyone could hear but no one could find. And the more I circulated, the more people that ran into me, the more I realized no one knew whose house this was. The owner, if he or she was there, was keeping him or herself silent, if he or she existed at all. And all at once I was in sophomore year, worried that the cops would give us all minors.

I retreated to a bedroom up the stairs and down the hall. Aside from one mattress on the floor with one tousled off-white sheet, there was no evidence that anyone used it for a room of any sort. No dressers, pictures, hangers, clothes, no anything that said a person was here or might come here again, save this lonely sheet. I stretched down on the mattress against my better judgment, and I will admit it was quite soft. The sheet, too, seemed soft but yet not worn. And as I kicked off my shoes and drew it over me I thought to myself, Why not just go home?

Why What Wheatgrass

Man, let me just tell you this, I am loving listening to everybody talk about their engagements and babies and all their little weddings. I love these rings, I love diamonds, anything shiny, the bigger the better, the merrier the more. I love the intersections of anger and pain, the avenues of yoga pants and red wine. I want to hear about your dogs, I want the details of your excursions, I want the selfies of you in front of priceless monuments and ancient culture. Tell me where to cleanse, instruct me how to salad, who for the best bicycle and why what wheatgrass. You are leveled up! You are strong and self-sufficient, needing nothing but the constant wireless support of everyone you hold dear and countless other avatars! Man, I envy you. I want your thread count, your co-op, your disposable income and your forced dancing.

I want to say something nice about someone every day for a year. But I don't just want to say it to myself. I don't even want to say it to the other person. Oh, sure, I could make a call or send a letter, write a message, shoot a text. I could invite someone over or ask them out for lattes. But, man, seems the way to go is to tag them in a post letting everyone know that I'm saying something nice, how many other nice things I've said, and say some other nice thing. That way my niceness will reach more people, far more than the post is actually about. (Side note: The post is about me!) Why do something nice for someone if they're the only one who knows you did it?

Sonny

I jolted up, or sideways rather, curled into a fetus on the dirty bathroom floor. The toilet seat was up, the remnants of a half-digested peanut butter sandwich buckshot blasted there inside. A voice outside the door kept calling "Sonny? Sonny? You all right in there?" I spat and flushed and spat again, and with such herculean effort as I've never had I managed "Yeah."

Which makes me either very stupid or very dishonest, for no man in my state would answer "yes" to "are you fine." I'd moved back in with Cousin Reg, fallen on hard times and harder drink, and what little dough I had I spent on ego. But he could see me through those doors, or else he might as well have. And Cousin Reg is older than me but his hearing's fine. He knew what scene had unfolded.

By the grace of God I stood and held myself up at the sink. What was this thing before me in the mirror? A man, supposedly, it had the marks of one; the eyes, the ears, the thinning hair. I was in a room made from my poor decisions, walls and roof built by my apathy. I could have taken charge and saved and acted better and asked questions and read and listened and thought and prayed and done a little bit more every day until every day I did so much, so much I'd hardly take it, a life filled with nothing but doing and being and understanding. And now I bunked with Cousin Reg, and there were beard trimmings in the sink and mold in the shower.

"Sonny?" he said again, and this time went to come on in, the doorknob rattling from my good sense to lock it. Though if I'd died in there—which, let's be honest just this once, might very well have happened—they would have had to break the door down, axe it up and see me through the wreckage like so many crumpled towels. Is that how I wanted to die? Is that how I wanted to live? "Sonny?" Reg asked me again. "You sure that you're all right?" And for what's left of what I call a life I'd no idea the answer.

Hung Up

Two, three, four o'clock goes by and I'm not surprised. I knew it was her birthday weekend, or found out after I'd asked her. She was enthusiastic, used exclamation points. She said we'd play the time by ear. I'd gotten this before but still pressed on. And when the time for coffee fades I can only chuckle, and mostly at myself.

It's not a difficult thing: "It's my birthday." It's not that complicated: "Maybe another time." And because of these easy answers I am forced into the only possible truth, which is that this is a signal, a message, as all the others were. They come into view, side by side, and each one magnifies the other. The facts were there, but I was hellbent on bending them.

I pine. I get hung up, it's true. But more than that I'd like the truth. The ones in my head, the ones I make up, are worse even if they are better. And, by definition, anything I make up cannot be true. If you think you're hurting me, trust me, you're helping. Also, I could wise up, stop acting silly, leave you alone. There's that, too.

Ten and Two

On the way home I noticed you kept checking your watch and calling me sir. You slowed down at greens when you thought they'd turn yellow and stopped when the yellows had yet to turn red. You had your hands at ten and two, which I was always taught but had never actually seen. I couldn't seem to hear the outside world. It was you, and it was me.

At my corner I said thank you, started to get out but something stopped me, a breath, by you, an inhalation just before a thought. I asked you what and saw your knuckles turn, I heard leather rubbing off into your palms at ten and two. I asked again. You looked at me. A year of unsaid sayings.

Your grip was lost, your gaze went to the road ahead of you, whoever you were headed next. And I got out, not knowing if I should, but knowing that I had to. I closed the door the way my mother always asked me to, I didn't slam. And the thing about your hands placed where they're supposed to be, there's enough room for your head to fall down slowly right between them.

Gin Joint

It was an "of all the gin joints" kind of moment. The lights were bright but I saw her in the back row. She was wearing this floppy hat she loved. She had said she was going to come but I thought, giving recent circumstances, that was off the books. Apparently not.

I took my time after curtain call, knowing she'd wait in the lobby. I'd like to say my heart wasn't hot, that it wasn't in my throat, that I wasn't nervous, that I could concentrate. I can't say any of that. I took a shot and told myself I had energy and could do this and took another shot and put on my coat.

I walked out and looked around. I looked to the couches and the groups of smiling audience. I waited by the bathrooms and checked my phone. I didn't see her anywhere, no hair of hers, no floppy hat. No text that told me how much she enjoyed the show, or even that it was clear everyone was having a lot of fun up there. I had another shot and then I left.

And there she was outside, standing on the curb. I saw the hat first. Then the familiar dress. Then the handsome guy whose arm she was playfully pushing. He looked at me, whoever he was, her cue to turn around. Oh my gosh, she told me, great job, so, so great. I thanked her, he said a version of the same, I thanked him. She asked me if I wanted to get a drink, in the slow and questioning way you ask someone who's already been drinking and might want to stop.

Did I want to stop? No. But go with them? Never. I made a polite goodbye and went in a direction I knew was wrong. It was cold but I felt warm inside, and even though it was a lie, it was something.

The Getaway

If something were to happen you know where to find me. I have a bag packed—this you know—and it's in the back of the closet, just like we talked about. I gas up the car every night and it never gets more than half empty. I have maps. I have cash. I have a stellar list of music lined up for wherever we take ourselves.

Because if something happens, we'll have to get away. We'll have to take ourselves, our lives, to places unknown and set shop up there. I'd like to keep my name, I'd like you to keep yours. But I know that's not realistic. I have a list of names. I like some of them fine.

If something were to happen we'd meet right where we said we would. Time would be of the essence, time would not be on our side. Time rarely it. It so rarely is.

But after things settled I think it'd be fine. Us, you and I, we'd be fine. I could start over like so many times before. I could be just about anyone or anything, I think, if I had to. And if something were to happen, if everything goes wrong, I'm glad I'd have you by my side. It would almost be romantic, if it weren't so terrifying.

Spectacle

I looked to the sky for refinement, you told me there'd be answers there. But I've received not one in these odd fifty years, my time expanding to the bursting point. POP! goes clarity, POP! goes truth, and here I'm left with no spectacles for these remaining days. Help me to see the way, get me off my ass and out the door and make some change. I'll keep living, I'll keep grinding on, but I've done my part and asked. Now someone, somewhere, up there, all around, has to lend a hand.

Scream

There is only
so much screaming
I can do

Before

I need you
to scream

For me.

Title and Content

I'll do the title if you do the content. I'll look into the future and see what exactly you might have to say. I'll take it and condense it and distill it and I'll give your thing a name. You'll think and think and say and say and all of that, and at the end you'll scratch your head and wonder what it is you've got. And I'll take all of your words, taking from the pleading look you'll send my way. And you might think I'm adding very little. And you'd be wrong. For nowadays they will not stop to wonder at the content. If the title doesn't grab them, that's the end.

Happy and You Know It

I walk in to tell you what I really think but you look so happy. And the people around you, they all look so happy. I don't know if I could get a crowd like this around me and still keep their smiles. I think my pocketbook would be lighter and you'd have a lot of looking at watches.

So you say hi and throw your arms around me, and I say hi and thank you for inviting me. You say you're glad I could come and you say it like you mean it. And it dawns on me that you say what you mean. You seem sincere because you are, and we're not playing the same game because it's not a game at all.

And eventually I start to smile, too. And these people, they're not so bad. They're pretty good. And everyone likes everyone and everyone is happy everyone made it. They're happy, and they made it. And I leave not exactly the same, but with an idea of how I might me.

Good and Gone

And since I've gotten good at it I watch you walk away. Your stride and ponytail, your effervescent step. I close my eyes as you make the sidewalk yours and, yes, I hear you go. And, still, I stand there, and my eyes are closed. If I am nowhere near you are you still gone?

Some Hearts

"The heart wants what it wants" is the mantra of a weak man. The heart doesn't have a brain but you do, supposedly, and sometimes it needs to teach your heart a lesson. And if it will not learn sometimes you have to beat it into submission, broken though it already is. But some hearts won't learn any other way.

And don't feel bad. It'll heal. And so you will. And you'll be down this road again.

Donor

I've struggled long and hard as to what's better, gutting a building and remaking it from within or tearing it down and building one completely new. Because I've walked into remodeled libraries and houses and restaurants, and I've set foot in new churches and bookstores and restaurants. And I supposed one isn't necessarily better than the other, but I want it to be. Because the books are never in the same place for me, but they're in the same place for the kids. And this isn't where I prayed, but it's where you might. And I don't like the idea of my organs inside another living person, but if I'm dead and gone who's to say I know what's right?

The Last of the Honey

My startup disk is almost full.

I have so much more I want to say to you.

...

I think you're great wonderful pretty beautiful pretty magic magical everything

Start again. I think you're... You're... I think you are...

My startup disk is almost full.

I remember when I saw you first, so let's start there. I remember where it was, a farmers market. You were looking at zucchini and we both had bags of bread we were eating. I saw honey sticks sticking out of your jeans pocket. I thought you were a sight to see. I think you're—

My startup disk is almost full, I know, I know. I think you're marvelous. Wondrous. All those older words that we don't use much anymore, but that mean more than the ones we do. Starlight. Uncorruptable. You were a fantasy and I grasped that summer morning onto all the things I thought you were.

...

You were mine, once, briefly. I imagined I was yours. Only one bag of bread and we could share it. Fighting over the last of the honey. Zucchini, and apples, and the brightest lettuce.

...

I have so much more I want to say to you.

My startup disk is full.

Primary

When it was mine to lose and all my fault I said I never needed you. I took it out, completely on my own, as if I was the only man on earth. Prometheus is walking up that hill, but at least he's getting to the top before that boulder slides back down again. My boulder slides down right on me and here I go I'm fine. Solid mighty rock crushing my bones, making a dust far coarser than anything you'd find under these weary feet. When it was mine, I never had to call it what it was. Never had to say its name or gesture this or that. Nights were blue and mornings red and every time I saw you I saw the sun. But I couldn't tell you that, so I squinted my eyes.

Deli Woman

A woman sitting in a Jewish deli by herself. It is near three o'clock on a Sunday afternoon. Her purse on the table, a neutral clutch, by a cup of coffee by a plate of food. A hot open face real roast turkey sandwich, stuffing and mashed potatoes and thick creamy gravy to boot. Taking her time with her knife and fork, addressing the mountain of food with measured elegance and appetite. Steam rises from the homey plate, just like someone's mother used to make. The woman wipes the corners of her mouth with her plain white napkin, as it gets stained more and more with shades of itself.

A young server comes to the table, asking if there's anything else she can get, anything else the woman wants, is everything all right, how is everything. The sandwich half eaten, steam is subsiding, gravy congealing. A translucent yellow yellow plastic cup holds water and melting ice, a cup of coffee grows cool and cold. The woman looks at her meal and purse and the empty chair across from her. She looks up at the server whose name is Ann. She shakes her head. The coffee is freshened and the meal sits untouched. It's grown too much for her, it won't be reheated, and the check will not be paid for some time.

On Me

He stood there not knowing what to say. He'd asked about their schools and jobs and where and how they met, and did they all fly in from the same place, and how was the bride's dress and the groom's tuxedo, and what is Austin like anyway. After that it was only the piano player and the heat from the fire tornado. So he did the only thing you can do in a situation like that, and he bought a round of shots.

The great equalizer, the great friend-maker, a brief absence followed by a tray of shots was always met with heaping great howlings of joy. Then it was a night of what's your name agains and the next one's on mes. And that is exactly what happened. The cries and the laughter, the counting and slams, the Lara on the back and the three free light beers. A girl touched his arm, and touched it again and left her hand. And all this happiness took was an extra forty dollars.

Abuser

Like a beaten dog, or spouse, or almost anything, he kept going back to her. But this idea of her, a picture, framed in his mind just above his consciousness. And then no, no, he'd draw himself away, shun the thing, go over and over again in his mind the things she'd said to him not all that long ago. Stop, he'd tell himself, stop, he'd say. But he couldn't, or he didn't want to, and that's always enough. And none of t was her fault, she was no abuser, she knew very little of this. But he imagined what she might say, her look at the picture and hear it talk, telling him no, and no, and no again. Asking him to stop.

Full Circle

I see it up there watching me like a painting in a museum. Following me down the sidewalk, under construction, gravel and packed tan dirt dusting my new loafers. It's dark out and it's big and it's dolloped in the sky nearly full, and it gets me thinking.

I take out my phone, scroll to your name, hover dangerously close. Sometimes I swear my skin doesn't even touch the screen and it still goes, it might do it now, and what a time for it to happen. It's too late and I'm too foolish and I can search when I get home. It looks full though. But maybe it will be full tomorrow. Waxing or waning or who knows what.

It happened again, it always does. Practice something enough and eventually you'll get good at it. Well, I'm good at falling for unavailable girls. Someone call Gladwell and tell him I put my ten thousand hours in. Someone get me on a talk show as an expert. Someone put me in Webster's under dope.

It doesn't bother me anymore. Used to, but can't see a point in it. I could sit and whine and complain about them and me and why do I do and say the things I've done and said. Maybe I should, maybe that's growth. Growing's painful, though. I'm all right with being a stunted, love-filled, painless old man. I'll get mine eventually. Until that time, I've got plenty of laughing to do.

Box

I wait outside for half an hour before telling her I'm here. She says to come up and when she lets me in asks me what took me so long. I tell her traffic, she tells me I don't drive, I tell her I took a cab, and round and round we go.

The place is clean, the air smells sweet. Then I think it's maybe a little too clean, a little to sweet, a little too crime scene. I ask how she's been, busy, friends in town, parents, anything that might give credence to this habitat. She walks into the bedroom, her bedroom, as she tells me no. I want to follow so badly and I almost do, but I conquer my habit as she returns with the box.

The Box. The Box of Stuff. Everyone has one, sooner or later. I check through it without looking, the thing that keeps me reading on the same page forever and ever. She tells me it's all there, I tell her I know, she tells me it's all there again. And it's true. It is all there. All of it's there in this box.

I move slowly to the door while compassing with my eyes; a jacket, some shoes, anything. The sweetness is sickly at this point, the unfortunate amalgamation of pine and lemon and fresh spring and perfume. Or intentional. I see nothing. Maybe I'm not looking close enough.

The obligatory it was good to see you. The pause and then decision against the hug. The long dark of Moria back to my friend's couch. I have so much there already. And there's nothing in here I really need. And I could set it down, but I might go hurtling into the stratosphere.

Selfless

Touched by a single selfless act and filled with that newfound sense of all being right with the world, he walked to the corner store to buy a series of lottery tickets. Ten, he thought, would suffice. The numbers would be picked randomly and the odds stacked against him, although today was a day where odds didn't seem to matter much. Possibly a day, he thought, where they even seemed to be for him. And what would he do with his winnings? What sorts of good would he put forth unto the world? Those were the kinds of things that were difficult to grasp, even with his disposition and bolstered happiness. A thing that had been done for him was shifting to a thing he would be doing for himself. And to people like this, such days as these, the good ones, seem few and far between.

Palpitations

At night he would go to bed early and wake when the world was still silent. He held many of his hours during that time, using them to clean and write and iron his forlorn shirts. And then, after a productive if not altogether energetic time, he went back to bed. He didn't need energy then, that would come later.

He thought, once upon his youth, that tired was the only true way to live, running just enough on steadfast fumes. There was too much to do, too much to think, and nowhere near the minutes he needed. So the coffee multiplied, the sleeping dwindled, and our hero was left with far too few memories.

Until one day: No. He woke and saw the bedsheets barely shifted, the sign of a hard and impenetrable slumber, a sign that was becoming as commonplace as his caffeinated palpitations. He legs lagged and his skin sagged and the bags under his eyes looked like bruises. This was his lifestyle beating him up, his ass being kicked by his own bad decisions. Until he flung the sheets from the bed, screamed and screamed loudly, and made up his mind to do less. But do it better.

History Class

The bus never showed. He'd gotten to his stop at the usual time, it was unlikely he'd missed it. It began to rain and he waited across the street under some thin trees. But the bus didn't come and he got soaked. He walked back home and told his father he needed a ride to school. He liked his outfit and didn't change, wet though he was.

The halls were empty. There was usually some stray kids, older kids, without first hour milling about by lockers, but not today. The televisions were all turned on, but not to the morning announcements. It was the news, something breaking, though he didn't stop to see what it was. He got a late pass and was uninformed, and he walked into a hushed history class.

The television was on. All eyes locked on it. Thick black smoke, thick grey smoke, broken metal, people frantic and frozen and scared and dumbfounded. Two airplanes and no mistake. The lesson plan was out on hold. What implications would this have on them, the rest of the world, the rest of time? Who would do such a thing? This was something that happened to other people in other parts of the world. It did not happen here.

The tone marked the end of class and slowly students left. Teachers would be lenient towards stragglers that day. They would all be teaching the same thing, make believing they had any answers at all. And soon it was just his teacher and him, standing and watching, only a brief moment before the next hour took their desks. And together they watched the tower fall. Neither of them knew what to say. They could only watch the wreckage.

Work in Law

Sterling bought me a drink, whoever he was. I think he came with a girl someone went to school with, some girl who studied psychology. Spent the entire night wondering if people were reading into what I was saying. And me, not even bothering to think about the words that were coming out of my mouth. I don't know, maybe not, but it seems like a dangerous combination.

But he seemed stand-up enough and free drinks are free drinks. He had nothing to do with psychology or psychiatry, nothing aside from his connection to the girl, the woman, a future doctor. I thought about where they lived in relation to me. What did I study? Where have I gone?

But Sterling was here and he bought me a drink. He said he worked in law, about to start at a firm, something to do with lawyers. I asked him what he meant and he couldn't clarify, he was a paralegal and that was enough. But he was happy to have a job and he was buying the drinks. I never need more that that. He'll get his check eventually, he'll go home to his spaghetti. He'll figure out what side of the law he's really on.

I Couldn't Help but Notice

I couldn't help but notice that her belt matched her glasses and her earrings matched her shoes. I wanted so badly to tell her that I'd seen it, these little details that took her however long. Maybe she just threw them on, maybe it was by accident. Maybe she stood for hours in the store and more at home and tried combination after combination until she was struck just so.

I walked up to her and, Hi, I said. She hesitated and she said hello. I couldn't help but notice, and I spelled everything out. Oh, she said, really? She looked at her belt and her shoes, her eye scanned the periphery of her rims, the earrings she took at my word. It's really lovely, I said. She smiled and said thank you.

The light turned green, she started walking and I started walking, too. But two steps in I turned around, abrupt and swinging, and stood idle by a coffee shop until she'd gone away. I didn't want her to think I was following. I didn't want her to think I needed more from her. In a perfect world she went home and maybe late that night took off her earrings and looked at her kicked-off shoes near her closet. And then she briefly thinks of me before she washes her face or reads, and then forgets.

Somewhere I Can't See

Stuck around in a crowded room wondering if everyone's all right, wondering if they're thinking the same as me. Most people are a dime a dozen and why can't that be just as true for sympathies. I get dragged in time and time again and I think I can't be the only one who's wanting out. But I keep my mouth shut, I know better.

Jazz starts and it's coming from somewhere I can't see. I think it's live but with speaker advances you can never be too sure. A woman sings something about love over cymbal and snare. I guess it isn't such an awful place to be.

I spy her, this redhead, in an airy blouse with some airhead dope. We meet eyes when she enters but that could be anything. I'm surrounded by plants and pop art and people with jobs. Everyone seems to know someone and I'm wondering if there's something I missed. We meet eyes again, red and me. Her beau doesn't notice and it's possible neither does she.

Every song is about love. Not just tonight, but all-time. There isn't a single song that ain't about the stuff, and suddenly I understand all about sadness and suicide and why desperate people do desperate things. Or if I don't understand I sure do sympathize, and that can be just as true.

We meet eyes as I'm going to the bathroom. She's alone and she raises her eyebrows, maybe she raises something more. I try not to think too into it, I try not to think too much, I think too much, it's s problem. Her beau is at a stall and I sidle up next to him. He says he can't wait to get home, he got dragged here, he hates jazz music. That's what he calls it, jazz music. I say he's free to go at anytime. He walks out without washing his hands. I wash mine hard enough for both of us.

He's taken my advice and he's taken red with it. A guitar rains down from a corner of the room, a bass steps in, a woman croons for someone she'll never hold the same way again. And whether or not they're here is irrelevant. That kind of thing, it's always here.